NAB Chairman Justice Javed Iqbal has said that NAB is absolutely committed to rooting out corruption with iron hands in an atmosphere of renewed energy and dynamism, where fight against corruption is being taken as a national duty.
He said this while addressing NAB officers at NAB Headquarters. He said that the father of the nation, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, in his address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan had termed “One of the biggest curses… is corruption and bribery. That really is a poison. We must put it down with an iron hand”.
Javed Iqbal said that National Accountability Bureau was established to eradicate corruption in a holistic and integrated manner. This is the backdrop against with NAB is striving to accomplish its mission i.e. to rid the nation from corruption and corrupt practices. He said that NAB’s operational methodology has set three stages for proceeding of cases complaint verification, inquiry and investigation. NAB’s officers/officials need to follow Anti-Corruption Strategy by Adopting “Accountability for All” policy against eradication of corruption. He said that the hard work, commitment, transparency and merit being put in by NAB officers are being appreciated by national and international reputed organizations. He said that NAB officers should doubling their efforts in nabbing corrupts elements and recovered from them hard earned looted money of the innocent citizen of Pakistan.
He said that through detailed introspection and analysis of organizational weaknesses, overhaul of procedures, all pillars of the organization i.e. Operations, Prosecution, Human Resource Development and Awareness and Prevention.
He said that to close the possibility of any single NAB officer/official influencing the discharge of official business, the new concept of a “Combined Investigation Team” (CIT) was introduced where two investigation officers and a legal consultant, financial expert under the supervision of Additional Director/Case and concerned Director are working as a team for a fair, transparent and unbiased, inquiry/ investigations. He said that the quality of inquiry and investigation of NAB must have further improve due to establishment of NAB’s first Forensic Science Lab (FSL) in Islamabad which has all facilities of Digital Forensics, Questioned Documents and Fingerprint Analysis which will help is lending quality and solid evidence in conduct of inquiries and investigations. He said that NAB has devised Monitoring & Evaluation System (MES) in order to monitor NAB performance of NAB and all Regional Bureaus in qualitative and quantitative term which has proved He said that NAB is the Chairman of SAARC Anti-Corruption Forum. This was a reorganization of NAB’s excellent work. NAB is the only Organization with whom China has signed MoU to oversee projects being undertaken under CEPC. He said that NAB hopes that joint efforts of all stakeholders can collaborate to check corruption before happening with the help of all stakeholders.
He said that NAB is absolutely committed to nab corrupt elements and has recovered Rs. 153 billion during last 26 months and our overall conviction ration is about 70% in Accountability Courts. He said that NAB Ordinance 1999’s preamble emphasizes on recovery of looted money. Due to this reason, NAB has recovered Rs. 328 billion since its inception. He said that since its inception, NAB had adopted the Enforcement based approach in its fight against corruption. Special focus is now being given to Awareness and Prevention activities besides Enforcement to educate the people about the ill effects of corruption.
